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ishagk's review against another edition
2.0
DNF. I powered past the first few chapters hoping it would get better but it kept feeling like a vaguely Indianised version of Brave New World with no characterisation and poor storytelling. I didn't really understand the point of the interwoven stories from previous centuries, either.
Only reason it's not 1 star is because there was some beautiful poetry.
Only reason it's not 1 star is because there was some beautiful poetry.
narmada's review against another edition
When the first few pages of Clone were not to my taste, I looked at all the five-star ratings on Goodreads and decided to give the book another chance. Unfortunately, I was only able to get halfway through the book before I finally decided that the book was not for me.
My biggest criticism is that it is difficult to root for the main character. They exhibit almost no personality (despite being an “aberrant” clone), and the pacing of the book varies too wildly to get involved in the character’s thoughts. For example, the clone’s “changes” are almost discovered in the first 10 pages, in a scene that I suppose is meant to build tension. However, this is before the reader has had a chance to engage with the story yet, so the scene comes off as purely expository.
The rest of the prose is similarly expository in nature with very little character coming through. Sometimes it is not even clear what is being exposed. For example, the scenes with the museum and the dog are seemingly random. Sure, they detail the period of time over which the clone’s changes are enhanced and introduce some important characters, but almost any other setting could have done this as well. Even if they are foreshadowing something in the latter half of the book, they only serve to confuse the first half even more.
There is also a sex scene at some point in the book, where someone is described as having sex with “him”, and for a while I was left wondering who “him” was. The world-building is equally as opaque as this scene is. For the first 43% of the book, it is not clear what the structure of this society is, even though the various “classes” (?) of beings are name-dropped repeatedly. I can’t speak to the last 47%.
Maybe my biggest personal issue with the book is that I picked it up hoping to read Indian science-fiction (because popular sci-fi is overwhelmingly white), but this book could easily have passed as a white sci-fi book just by changing some names. I know this is supposed to be set in the ~future~, but it felt removed from any real-world culture. The references to India (and the spelling of Hindu as Hindoo) were Indian just in name, but alien to the setting.
My biggest criticism is that it is difficult to root for the main character. They exhibit almost no personality (despite being an “aberrant” clone), and the pacing of the book varies too wildly to get involved in the character’s thoughts. For example, the clone’s “changes” are almost discovered in the first 10 pages, in a scene that I suppose is meant to build tension. However, this is before the reader has had a chance to engage with the story yet, so the scene comes off as purely expository.
The rest of the prose is similarly expository in nature with very little character coming through. Sometimes it is not even clear what is being exposed. For example, the scenes with the museum and the dog are seemingly random. Sure, they detail the period of time over which the clone’s changes are enhanced and introduce some important characters, but almost any other setting could have done this as well. Even if they are foreshadowing something in the latter half of the book, they only serve to confuse the first half even more.
There is also a sex scene at some point in the book, where someone is described as having sex with “him”, and for a while I was left wondering who “him” was. The world-building is equally as opaque as this scene is. For the first 43% of the book, it is not clear what the structure of this society is, even though the various “classes” (?) of beings are name-dropped repeatedly. I can’t speak to the last 47%.
Maybe my biggest personal issue with the book is that I picked it up hoping to read Indian science-fiction (because popular sci-fi is overwhelmingly white), but this book could easily have passed as a white sci-fi book just by changing some names. I know this is supposed to be set in the ~future~, but it felt removed from any real-world culture. The references to India (and the spelling of Hindu as Hindoo) were Indian just in name, but alien to the setting.
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